abylab

A minimalist DeepSeek harness. What you install is one executable: no dependencies, no waiting, open source and free.

Quick start

  1. Run the line below in your terminal:

    /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zhang0098/abylab/main/install.sh)"

    Linux · macOS · installs to ~/.local/bin/abylab

  2. Grab an API key from platform.deepseek.com.

  3. Run abylab and log in once from the composer:

    /login sk-xxxxxxxx

  4. Type what you want done. That is the whole setup.

Building from source instead: cargo build --release. The installer also takes --bin-dir, --version, --no-path, --path-file and --help.

Features

One file

No Node, no Python, no dependency directory, no background process. A release build is about 11 MB (about 4.9 MB compressed), and abylab --version cold-starts in roughly 2 ms.

One process

Streaming, tool execution and session persistence all happen inside that one process: no IPC round trips, no GC pauses, no extra runtime.

Credentials stay yours

abylab never reads DEEPSEEK_API_KEY or any other variable. /login writes the key to ~/.abylab/.credentials.yaml (0600, owner-only).

Native to the terminal

Nine embedded palettes, mouse wheel and drag-to-copy, @ file mentions, image paste, and three permission presets: read-only, workspace-write, danger-full-access.

Open source and free

MIT licensed, all of it on GitHub: read it, change it, cargo build --release it yourself. No account to create, no paid tier.

Commands

/help /keys /new /resume [id] /compact /goal /clear /model [id] /effort [off|low|high|max] /permission [preset] /plan [on|off] /vim [on|off] /image <path> [text] /clip [text] /theme [dark|light|pack] /session /lang [zh|en] /quit

Keys

enter send / queue · ctrl+x send now · esc interrupt / 2× clear draft · ctrl+c clear / quit · ↑ history · / commands · @ file mention · ctrl+z undo · ctrl+p model · ctrl+t theme · shift+tab permission preset

What is inside

crates/abycorethe agent SDK: Agent, session snapshots, tools
crates/abylab-backendabycore Agent driver: commands ⇄ Agent::run, hooks → permission ask
crates/abylab-tuithe canvas: composer card, markdown, palettes, @file, image thumbs

Internals — workspace instructions, context compaction, session persistence, goal rounds — are in TECH.en.md.